New York and New Jersey are on a roll. Both states have made gains in the race to nab Hollywood movie and TV spending for on-location shoots. California, meanwhile, has upped the ante with a doubled incentive program that is attempting to halt production flight to more attractive tax locales — and that triage effort appears to be working.
The Golden State stayed No. 1 overall with $1.33 billion in production spend that inched up 5 percent year-over-year as filming count grew by 11 percent, industry tracker ProdPro reported in its Q2 2026 snapshot released on Wednesday. That bucked declining filming activity as recently as the first quarter of this year in California. That’s the good news for Gov. Gavin Newsom and the state’s film office, led by the outgoing Colleen Bell.
Additionally, California is also seeing a rise in what’s deemed committed spend, defined as estimated production budget for projects that start shooting in the quarter.
“It’s only one quarter, but combined with what we saw in Q1, we think it’s an early sign that the expanded incentive is bringing more productions back to the state than we saw throughout 2025,” Alex LoVerde, co-founder and CEO at ProdPro, tells The Hollywood Reporter. “Incentives are just one factor in where productions choose to film, but the early data suggests California is beginning to regain momentum.”
